The first airline was established in 1918 in Germany shortly after the development of the first practical passenger planes. Most of the airlines founded in the 1920s and '30s were created at least in part to encourage the purchase of aircraft of domestic manufacture, the need to provide colonial routes of travel between the extensive colonial empires then in existence, the desire to establish world-scale route patterns, and the desire after World War I for an air service to speed up the mails. Competition for airmail routes led to the formation of several large American aviation companies.
Modern airline travel is the principle means of travel throughout the world today. Improved aircraft operation, the advent of multi-engine aircraft and the jet engine, and improved passenger accommodations all contribute to the overwhelming popularity of air travel. To participate in modern airline travel, passengers must purchase flight reservations in advance. Flight reservations can be purchased in person or by phone, but are most commonly purchased through online purchasing sources utilizing the World Wide Web or other Internet.
Passengers of airline flights must be keenly aware of their flight information, including airline names of flight numbers, departure locations and departure times, destination locations and arrival times, and other relevant flight information. Flight information is often provided to passengers in the form of itineraries provided by the airline. In other instances, it is well known for passengers keep track of their relevant flight information by documenting the flight information in a day-timer, a travel journal, a portable electronic device such as portable digital assistant or laptop computer or the like, etc. Regardless of the means utilized by passengers to document their flight information to ensure they arrive at the correct departure locations in advance of their departure times and also inform others of their arrival destinations and times and flight numbers and the like, many passengers routinely loose their flight itineraries, misplace their previously flight information, or simply forget the details concerning their flights, which often leads to missed flights, and confusion for others that have planned to pick up passengers at their travel destinations.